When my older daughter was in high school, we battled often about her clothing. Her school had a dress code that said girls couldn’t wear spaghetti strap tops and their shirts had to cover their backs and bellies. I thought it was my role as her mother to fight that battle on behalf of the
Which Battles Do You Choose to Fight and When? Read More »
When did you last exchange a business card with someone? I’m sure it was either in March 2020 or earlier. Over the past (almost) two years, we’ve proven we don’t need paper business cards. Yet, some people still print them. I wonder how many of these pre-pandemic rituals we will retain and how many we
How Can We Rethink Business Card Rituals and Still Connect with Each Other? Read More »
I love to make it easy for me to do my best work. To do so, I need to think about what I want to reinforce and what I want to dampen. When I create reinforcing—or virtuous—feedback loops, I use my data to do more of what I want. However, that’s not always easy to
Where Can You Create Reinforcing (Virtuous) Feedback Loops? Read More »
When do you choose to fill your gas tank? Do you wait until the tank is almost empty? How about at the quarter-full mark? Somewhere in between? We each make decisions about the gas we have in our cars—or our lives. When we don’t have enough of something, we need to refill the tank. We
When Do You Know It’s Time to Refill Your Tank? Read More »
CAL Newsletter: Why Is “You Got This” So Evil? My physical challenges are apparent to anyone with vision. I use a rollator (wheeled walker) when I leave the house. Heck, I use a rollator inside the house. And every so often, people want to offer me moral support. They say, “You got this!” as if
Why Is “You Got This” So Evil? Read More »
Have you ever left a bandage on your arm too long? If you leave it on too long, you feel anywhere from discomfort to pain when you pull it off. Does that change your choice—do you choose to rip the bandage off as soon as you realize that? Or do you choose to leave it
How Do You Choose Between Short-Term Convenience and Long-Term Pain? Read More »
I spoke with a writer the other day. He said mean things about himself—that he was a bad writer. (Not true.) That he didn’t make time to write. (True.) That no one would want to read his articles. (Definitely not true.) Sometimes, we give ourselves too much leeway for our mistakes—we are too kind to
When Are You Kind to Yourself and When Are You Not? Read More »
Aside from death and taxes, we can depend on change. Change occurs whether we want it to or not. We have big choices: when to embrace or reject these changes. I don’t see just one extreme: embrace or reject. Instead, how can we create options that help us through the changes so we can embrace
When Do You Choose to Embrace or Reject Personal Change? Read More »
I have limited expertise. (I have many opinions, but I have limited expertise.) That means I need to decide when to trust someone else’s expertise. My decisions depend on many criteria, including the domain—and the personal cost to me. I have substantial expertise in product development, so I check the context, look for options, and
Whose Experience and Expertise Do You Trust and When? Read More »
Now that I’ve had my vaccinations, I’m ready to renew myself. I miss seeing people, locally and worldwide. However, I definitely do not want to work and live the way I did before. Instead, I want to take this time to renew (and maybe reinvent), starting with my thinking. Of course, I looked up the
How Will You Renew Yourself? Read More »